SPI 487: Business Success as a Farm Family: The Story of Goat Milk Stuff

SPI 487: Business Success as a Farm Family: The Story of Goat Milk Stuff

Pat:
This is a story about hard work, determination, sacrifice, and a woman named PJ, and her husband, Jim, and their eight kids, who have together created a very successful business that I am just so excited about and a lot of the world is excited about too. What does this business have to do with? Goats. I mean, not GOATs, I mean, they are GOATs, greatest of all time, but I literally mean goats like, “Meh-eh-eh.” Like goats. That was not a sound effect, I tried, I don’t even know if that’s the exact sound that a goat makes.

But anyway, this website and this business they have is family run. It’s a farm business called GoatMilkStuff.com. They make stuff out of goat milk. And honestly, I was a little bit skeptical at first. I’m not a big fan of goat milk as far as consumption, but in terms of soap and beard cream, and other products that they offer, yeah, I’m blown away. In fact, my wife and I are now fans.

So, I’m excited to introduce the Jonas family through PJ, who we’re interviewing today. But this is actually when we really hear about it, it’s not just PJ, it’s Jim, Brett, Colter, Emery, Fletcher, Greyden, Hewitt, Indigo, and Jade, all together for this business. And it is so inspiring, so mind blowing. And I’m so excited for you to listen in. Here we go.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host – he didn’t even know Elizabeth Olsen from Wanda Vision was a sister to the Olsen twins – Pat Flynn!

Pat:
What’s up, it’s Pat, here. And thank you for joining me in episode 487 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. And this is just incredible, because PJ and her family, I mean eight kids, number one, stay at home mom, homeschooling, but running this business altogether and sharing how the family has managed, how jobs are managed, how kids are managed. And I’m learning so much in this episode too. And I think you will too, even if you don’t have kids, just the management and the business and the finances we get into that. There’s just so much to unpack here and I cannot wait to share it with you.

So, let’s not wait any longer. Here she is, PJ Jonas from GoatMilkStuff.com. Here we go.

PJ, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today.

PJ Jonas:
I am so glad to be here today, Pat.

Pat:
Now, when I first heard about you is through a friend of ours, Mark Mason, who in fact was the first guest we’ve ever had on this show. And he could not stop raving about you and your family and what you guys are doing. And I’m so excited to dive into that. And I know it has to do with goats, all things goats.

PJ:
Yeah.

Pat:
How did this even begin? I want to know the full story.

PJ:
So, I actually graduated with an engineering degree, worked for a few years in corporate America. And then my first daughter was born and I was like, “Forget this, I do not want to work in corporate America anymore.” And I left to be a stay at home mom. And that turned into becoming a homeschooling mom. It turned into having a lot more children. And eventually, I wanted them to have a really practical education. And so, I ended up getting dairy goats so we would have healthy milk. And so they would have the responsibility of chores and all of that.

And then one day I was bathing the children, letting them just splash around and I picked up the baby wash I had always used and read the ingredients for the first time. And I was just so upset that it was filled with all these chemicals. And so, I was like, “Forget this, I’m not using this anymore. I’m going to figure out how to make my own soap.” And this was 15, 17 years ago. And now it’s all on YouTube, but back then, there wasn’t any directions. And I found this old recipe for soap made with water. And I was like, “Ah, I got goat milk. I’m going to put the goat milk in the soap.”

And when I made it and put it in the shower, my husband’s finger stopped cracking and splitting. And that had been a battle that he had fought for years. He was a teacher and all the chalk on the chalkboard, and just everything that he would do would just constantly crack them. And I was like, “Wow, this is actually something.” I had just figured, “Well, let’s just try and sell some, and see what happens.” And it just went crazy from there.

Pat:
And it is going kind of crazy. Can you help us fast forward to today, and what the business is like, if you can share any sense of how grand this is, that I think we can provide some perspective there?

PJ:
Yeah. So, when I started, we had a little three acre homestead. We had a couple of goats. We were making it in the kitchen. And fast forward today, we’ve bought a 36 acre farm. We have probably six or seven big buildings on it. We’ve been as high as about 250 goats. We’ve cut that back because of the pandemic. We sell worldwide. We sell hundreds of thousands of… Well, clearly over a million by now, but each year hundreds of thousands of bars, and just, yeah, we sell a lot of soap.

Pat:
That is incredible. And it’s a whole operation now, it seems. So, I’d love to know the thinking behind taking it from making it in your own home and sharing it with your family, and maybe selling it to a few people here and there, to now what seems like this giant empire of goat stuff, which is in fact… Tell us the URL, in case anybody is just curious and wants to check it out while they’re on the go right now.

PJ:
Yeah. So, I was very creative when I came up with a name for the company and I named it Goat Milk Stuff, because I just wanted to make stuff with goat milk. So, it’s just GoatMilkStuff.com, is all it is.

Pat:
So, why go so grand with it? What was the thinking behind that? What made you want to go bigger?

PJ:
There were a couple of things going on. So, I have eight children. And one of the things that was important to me was that they were involved with every aspect of the business. Now, each of them have different roles based on their personalities, based on their traits, what they like, what they don’t like, but I wanted them to each be a part. And so, when they’re little, right? When they’re seven, eight, nine, we’re like, “What do you want to do with your life?” It’s like, “Oh, I want to work for the business.” Because that’s all that they know. Right? That’s what they’ve grown up in.

But as they start becoming 15, 16, 17, 18, and you’re exposing them to other things and they’re still saying, “No, I want to work the business. Right? This is what I want to do. I like what we’ve built. I like how we help customers. I like everything that we stand for.” And you say, “Okay, then if it’s going to support…” Yeah. I mean, obviously we have employees as well – but eight children plus us, so call it nine individual families, then it’s got to be at a scale where they can all have roles that they’re not killing each other with and that it can actually support them. So, it was like, “Okay, we’re helping people with their skin. We’ve got children who want to work the business. Let’s see what we can do with this.”

Pat:
That’s amazing. And part of the answer is probably you just need enough soap to support the family, is why it’s so big. Right? Because you have eight kids, that’s incredible. That’s so cool that you also, like me, try to combine just the business with the family and use that as an opportunity to teach. I absolutely love that. So, what are more of the roles that the kids have in the business? What are the kind of the things that they do?

PJ:
So, right now, they’re aged 13 to 24. So, it’s very different from when they were 1 to 10 when we started. But now, my middle son is actually the barn manager, because he doesn’t want anything to do with computers. He doesn’t want anything to do with that. He loves working with his hands. He’s the one who fixes the tractor and does all of that. But he’s actually managing the staff that takes care of all the goats, doing all the scheduling. And then he blew me away a couple of weeks ago. He came and presented me with a scatterplot of when the goats had given birth so he could schedule the kidding session.

Pat:
Wow. That’s awesome.

PJ:
So, my kid who didn’t want to be on the computer put together the scatterplot. And so, it’s just, was a really great, “Okay, I’ve exposed him to this stuff and he didn’t care about it until he actually needed it.” And then once he needed it, it became very practical for him. So, he does that. My oldest son is the one who has taken over managing the soap room and all the soap making. So, he’s the one that deals with all the forecasting, predicting what soaps need to be made, all of that, and then managing all the fulfillment side.

My 15 year old and my 20 year old have taken over social media. And that, I can’t even tell you, watching them grow, if you look back at the Instagram feed two years ago, versus compared to now, they’ve taken photography courses, they’re learning all of these things. I was listening to my daughter this morning, as a 15 year old, have a meeting. I didn’t even know what she was talking about. She was throwing out these terms. And I was like, I had to remember to ask her what that is, because I didn’t know, she was talking about Instagram penalizing her for something. I don’t even know what it was. So, very different roles depending on their strengths.

Pat:
That’s so cool. I think that’s how it should be both in school and at home, and whatnot. So, I love that. That’s very inspirational to me, and I know a lot of the other parents and soon to be parents here who are listening in.

I’d love to go back to the moment you saw that this soap was helping your husband’s skin, the moment that you realized that you now have something natural to use in the home and starting to sell it. Now, it’s one thing to just have a product. And I know a lot of people are makers and crafters out there, listening to this right now as well, who might have an idea, but there are so many limiting beliefs. There are so many things getting in the way of actually turning it into a business. What were some of the hardships that you had in the beginning that made it a little bit more difficult or added a little more friction before you actually started to actually turn this into a machine?

PJ:
Right. So, when I first started the business, my kids were under one to 10. They were really young. And I knew that I needed this to be an online based business, just because of their ages. Well, back then, there weren’t any of these easy websites to plug and play. So, I actually had to teach myself how to code to put up a website.

Pat:
Wow.

PJ:
I remember I had little PayPal buttons and I was so proud of and everything. I look back now, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, it was awful.” But it worked. But what I quickly found is when you have no money and you put up a website, you can’t afford to pay for advertising, you can’t afford to pay to get people to your website. So, you have to figure out a creative way to get people there.

For us, what we ended up doing was going to local craft fairs and festivals. This was before farmer’s markets were really big. But we would do that, and we would hand out free samples, and we would sell some soap. But the main purpose was to get as many samples into people’s hands, get as many emails as we could and to drive people back to the website. So, that was one of the things at the beginning was just the practicality of how do I actually get eyeballs on my website?

Pat:
So, you literally went out there, guerrilla marketing, or in this case, goat marketing, I guess, to just like, “Here is some soap, try it.” And let the product speak for itself after that.

PJ:
Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t know at the time, none of my children have eczema, but I didn’t realize what a big thing eczema was. And so, when we just, by happenstance, got our soaps into the hands of people with eczema, I started to hear all the stories of how bad eczema was and how the steroids, and the bleach baths and all of that. And those people who had tried all of those things and nothing worked, and simply using our natural soap, healed their skin problems. They told everybody they knew. I mean, it was just word of mouth. We didn’t do any advertising for years and years, and years. It was just crazy.

Pat:
That’s the power of a great product and the power of providing a solution. And you start to share those solutions with your friends, your family, when you see and find something good. Now, I’m curious, because if I were to come up with a recipe for something like this, I’m just like, one thing that’s blocking me in my brain is, “Am I allowed to sell this? Is this legal? Is this safe?” Yes, it feels safe, but how do I know and are there legal implications with selling something that goes on a person’s body? Where did that come into play? How did you figure that stuff out?

PJ:
So, obviously, the internet is your friend when it comes to this kind of thing. Number one, you can’t make any medical claims. Right?

Pat:
Got it.

PJ:
So, anything on my website says it may help heal. I say all the time, everybody’s skin is different, right? I can’t promise you, just because it’s helped hundreds and thousands of other people, I can’t promise you it’s going to help yours. And the other thing we do is we have different formulas, so people can try different things. But number one, you can’t make any medical claims, no matter what it is you do, do not promise results because you can’t do that.

Number two, why you have to understand what labeling requirements there are. And for the case of soap, it’s literally two things you have to say that it’s soap. And you have to say the minimum weight. Also recognize that there’s no label police out there, right? There’s nobody out there policing this stuff, which doesn’t mean to do it the wrong way. But if you have to get started, if your labels aren’t perfect to get started, you don’t have to have all the scientific, Latin names of the ingredients, and all of this, just get started. And as it starts to build, you can get a little more formal on your labels and a little more with the details. But as long as you’re staying out of food and out of making medical claims, you’re pretty safe. Food is a whole n’other story.

Pat:
Food is definitely a whole another story. That’s for sure, with the FDA and all that other stuff. At what point did you go, “Wow, this is something. We got something on our hands here.” Then what did you do after that?

PJ:
So, we started selling in 2008 in The Great Recession. And by about early 2009, the children and I were starting to be overwhelmed. We were starting to have a really hard time keeping up with it. I can remember my husband coming home from work and we’d be having like a picnic on the floor because everything was covered with soap and whatnot. And we had this conversation and we said, “Okay, this is too much for the children and I to handle without you, but it is not making enough money to replace your salary.” Right? Because that’s one of the things that I think that a lot of people, when they’re starting something, especially product-based, struggle with is you make a couple hundred units. You sell them like, “Oh, if I just doubled this, I would make twice as much. If I tripled this, I would make three times as much.” It doesn’t work that way.

As your business grows, you have to keep putting more and more money into it. And so, we had that conversation. I remember the kids were like one to 11. And everything we’ve done, we’ve always done with a family meeting. And we sat around the table and we said, “Okay, we have a choice to make.” And we said, “If we do this, if we bring daddy home full time, you’re not going to have any cheddar cheese on your baked potatoes, right? You’re not going to have ice cream. It’s going to be a lot of rice and beans and things like this, that you’re really going to have to sacrifice because it’s not replacing daddy salary. And so, we’re going to have a short fall until it does.” And everybody just agreed that the response was so great, and just the chance to bring my husband home full-time to work with us, everybody, I think was more excited. They were willing to do anything to make that actually happen.

Pat:
Wow.

PJ:
So, it was 2009, and he was on full-time by the end of 2009.

Pat:
And what was his role when he came in full-time?

PJ:
So, my husband has always been the picker upper. He’s the one who deals with everything that falls through the cracks that, “This person needs help.” Okay, he’ll go help there. “That person needs help.” Walking around, seeing what things haven’t quite gotten through. So, a lot of people are like, “Oh, does he work full time?” Because they never see him. I’m like, “Yeah. He’s busy picking up the pieces that everybody else hasn’t quite finished.”

Pat:
Is it just the family working with the business now, or do you have other employees at this time?

PJ:
We have other employees. So, before the pandemic, we were up to probably about 15 employees. With the pandemic, we ended up shutting down our on-farm business, which we did a lot of agritourism tours. We made cheese, yogurt, gelato, and had a lot of people come and visit the farm, play with baby goats, tours and that. So, when we had to close that down, we ended up having a lot of employees leave. And so, it was one of those things that was a mixed blessing. It was really hard to lose that income. It was really hard to tell people, no, they couldn’t come and visit the farm, but it made us focus on what we do best and made us streamline.

And to be perfectly honest, ever since we started the business, my family has worked mostly seven days a week, but six days a week in front of customers, right? Because we’ve been open Monday to Saturday. And with the pandemic, we’ve actually gone to Monday to Friday. And that has been huge for the family. Because like my children, like I said now, are 13 to 24. My oldest is married with kids. The others are dating and doing things like that. And so to have their weekends back, it’s been a really good change for the family.

Pat:
That’s really nice. And they probably come in even more enthusiastic during the week because they know that they have a weekend to look forward to. And it’s just a win for everybody. I love that. Thank you for letting me in on the family and the dynamic. I think this is really interesting. I’m definitely going to go back to that in just a minute.

But I’d love to know how after the business started in ’08 and things started moving in ’09, you started to realize that this thing had legs, I’d love to know how, with the rise of social media and the internet and YouTube, I know you’re on YouTube as well with 43,000 subscribers at this point – how has that helped or not helped? I’m sure it has in some way, but exactly what has that done for you in terms of the business and getting more product into people’s hands?

PJ:
Yeah. So, we have up ’til now, we’ve primarily focused on Facebook.

Pat:
Facebook. Okay.

PJ:
You mentioned YouTube. The YouTube is this thing where I’m like, “I got to spend more time on YouTube.” But right now we’ve primarily focused on Facebook, because the Facebook Lives are easy. I don’t have to get dressed or prep, or anything, I can literally take my phone, go out and show goats, and talk to people about our lives. I mean, I show people what we’re cooking on the farm. When I’m making goat milk yogurt, and having it with berries, I’ll sit there and show them my yogurt.

And what I’ve used Facebook for is to connect to people, right? Is not to try and sell the products – so that we do, I mean, obviously because we’re showing things, we just made a batch of goat milk caramel today, and we showed it wrapping, and people have bought some. But it’s more to connect with what life is like on the farm, what our lives look as a homeschooling family with children who work, what it’s like to raise animals, what it’s like to eat healthy, right? Because so many people want to have a healthier, more natural lifestyle, but they don’t really know how to do it. Right? And quite honestly, to show people how hard it is, because it’s so easy to idealize this farm life like, “No, farm life’s hard. Guess what? goats die.” That’s really tough at times, right? When you have one that you’ve been working on saving.

We’ve shown people how to tube-feed baby goats, if we have one that’s not thriving. And so, it’s really just been a very social thing for us. This is our lives, you like our lives, you don’t like our lives, but this is what it is.

Pat:
I love that. And from a customer’s perspective, they know exactly where everything is sourced from and who it’s coming from, and building a relationship with you. I mean, this is where I’m sure you have superfans and customers who are just repeat, on repeat, on repeat. I’m curious about the business in terms of how sales are made, is it just a website or are you also in stores, and what kinds of options might I have to transact with you?

PJ:
Yeah. So, it’s primarily our website. It’s primarily the GoatMilkStuff.com. We are in stores, but we don’t go after any wholesale accounts. Those are customers that have come to us and say, “I have a store that I’d like you to carry it in.” So, it’s more smaller mom and pop places. We have had customers, I tell customers all the time, “If you have a local store that you want to carry our soaps, give them our contact information. We’ll be happy to help them do that.” And we’ve had gotten new wholesale customers because of that.

We also have a fundraiser program that’s really popular. So, we have a lot of people who do adoptions or traveling, sports teams and things like that. And then obviously, we can take orders over the phone. But it’s primarily, it’s all we can do to keep up with our website.

Pat:
And what’s selling more than anything?

PJ:
The bar soap.

Pat:
The bar soap.

PJ:
The bar soap is our number one. A lot of people like the idea of a body-wash in the shower and stuff, but what they don’t realize is all the chemicals that are involved in creating a thick body-wash like that are really bad for your skin. And then we have what we call solid lotions, because most lotions that you buy in the store are water-based. And whenever you have a water-based product, bacteria can grow in it. So, when that bacteria can grow, they have to put chemical preservatives to stop that bacterial growth. So those are really popular too, the solid lotions because there’s no chemical preservatives.

Pat:
What other marketing strategies do you use to get people excited? Do you do a lot of seasonal stuff? What kinds of campaigns does a business like this run to inject a little bit more flavor into the business?

PJ:
Yeah. So, one of the things that we did, again, in response to the pandemic was we changed our soap sizes. We ended up pouring them taller so that they would be more efficient to make, so we could keep the prices low because a lot of people were struggling. And then we limited our scents. So, we took it from about 40 scents down to 24, that we make available at all time. And then all of those other scents that we used to have and some others, we make limited editions each month. So, each month there’s four to five.

Pat:
Oh nice.

PJ:
And so, people get really excited about those, the new ones that are coming out.

Pat:
It’s first come, first serve? If it’s gone, it’s gone situation? Wow.

PJ:
It’s gone. And we’ve been having a tough time predicting them. We’ve had some sell out in like five, six hours because they do get really popular.

Pat:
That’s so cool.

PJ:
Yeah. So, and when that happens – because I don’t want it to sell out that fast, so we’ll make another batch. But soap takes six weeks to cure. So, even if we made it that day, it can’t be available for another six weeks. So, that’s built a lot of people opening our emails, because they know that they have to pay attention, because sometimes it sells out fast.

And then we also do custom stuff. So, a couple of times a year, we’ll make you a lotion in whatever scent you want us to make it in, as long as we have it. You want a blend, we’ll make you a blend. We’ll make you lip balms and whatever you want, and things like that. So, people, even though it may not be available at all times, they could get what they want.

Pat:
That’s really cool. I love the idea of the fact that, well, the soap isn’t going to last forever, if you’re using it, and then you need to get more. Because I have a physical product and it’s just an invention, but it’s meant to last forever. And that doesn’t really help us in this regard. So, it’s just really interesting how that happens. And you know how they say, money doesn’t grow in trees. Well, it comes out of goats apparently. And I really love that for you guys. And I’m so excited for you.

How do you, as the business continues to grow — and there’s 36 acres, like you said, there’s a whole operation here. I know a lot of stories from people who have businesses of all kinds, who grow so big, so much that they don’t love what they do anymore. How do you continue to stay in love with the work that you do despite it growing and all the growing pains that are involved with it?

PJ:
I love that question. So, when we first started, most people didn’t know what goat milk soap was. Now, if you go to any farmer’s market, someone’s making goat milk soap. And a lot of times, there’s a couple people there. And we grew pretty quickly. We put a lot of hard work in to get to the point that where we were. And then the children started to hit their teenage years. And we had a big decision to make, right? Because teenagers are teenagers and they lose motivation. I mean, they can still be great kids, hard workers, but they lose motivation. And they get distracted and they don’t want to do other things.

And so, we made the decision to not push growth. Because we could’ve gone out, we could have hired a bunch of people to replace the teenagers, we could have done a lot of other things, but we said, “No, what’s important to us is providing the best product we can, but working together as a family and using Goat Milk Stuff to teach the children to be productive adults, right?” My kids know all the time, I don’t require you for the rest of your life to work in our business. You want to do something else? I will 100 percent support you in whatever it is you want to do. So, you can leave any time. But I would love it if they stayed, right? And so, I want it to be enjoyable.

Now, there’s always going to be tasks that you have to do that nobody really wants to do. Right? That’s just life. But I work hard to put them in the areas that they enjoy. I work hard to say, “You don’t want to work on Saturdays? Okay. Let’s not work on Saturdays anymore.”

And it’s hard sometimes to disappoint your customers, right? That’s not easy to do, especially when you’re such a customer-centric business like we are, but you ultimately have to do what is best for the business, what is best, if your family is working in it, for the family, just so that, so you don’t get burned out, so you don’t hate it, so you just don’t want to toss the whole thing away. And that being said, there are times when you do, I won’t lie. Right? There are times when – we unfortunately, found during the pandemic, customers got a lot meaner. They were not a lot … they were very not nice. And you just want to be like, “Why am I doing this?”

Pat:
Mm-hmm.

PJ:
But when you have a bigger purpose, it gets you through those times, right? I’m doing this because even if I have to deal with the occasional grumpy customer, I know I’m making a difference in people’s lives. And I know I’m making a difference in my children’s lives. Right?

And one thing we haven’t talked about yet at all, is my children all get salaries. They’ve all started from the beginning. And they all have retirement incomes. My kids dwarf my retirement income, right? I mean, because they’ve started from when they were 8, 9, 10 years old, they’ve been putting stuff away. So, those bigger pictures, when you have the tendency to feel like, “Why am I doing this again? Is this really worth it? Helps you to get back to, “Yeah. No, this is really worth it because there is something bigger. And yes, I may be tired right now, but I will get past that.”

Pat:
Thank you for that. As a business owner, fellow business owner, I know that it can be very difficult to turn off the business part of the brain. And you’re doing this all together as a family. How do you turn off the business so that you can just be together, have a nice dinner, or is it literally conversations about the business all the time? I’m curious to see what life at home is as a business owner and somebody who includes the business with the family.

PJ:
Yeah. So, it is incredibly difficult to turn it off. What we have done is we take ourselves off the farm. So, that has been a very intentional-

Pat:
Just get out of there.

PJ:
Yeah, because we live here, right? It’s all here. If there’s a sick animal, if there’s whatnot, it’s… And because there’s so many of us, there’s a lot of conversation just coordinating, who’s doing what, the details, the questions. And so, we strategically do it based on our tough times in the business. So, we have what’s called kidding season, which is when we have 200 to 250 baby goats born, it’s 24/7 for that entire month. And so, we literally leave for two to three weeks before it. We just get someone to watch the goats, to cover the business, and we take off usually someplace warm, because we know that’s coming up. And because we’re doing that, you go into that hard part refreshed and ready. The other time we do it is we do it at the end of summer because all the rates go down at the beach. So, we head to the beach while everybody is going back to school. And that preps us for the busy holiday season, which is our other really big crush. Yeah.

We have kids, my kids are obsessed with ultimate frisbee right now. So, I got to tell you that most of the conversations are about ultimate frisbee more than they are about the business at the dinner date.

Pat:
I had a little bit of an Ultimate Frisbee obsession moment in college. I went to UC Berkeley, and they have a huge Ultimate Frisbee situation going over there. Unfortunately, I’m a little too small to be a good player, but I played for fun anyway. That’s really cool. It sounds like you guys have a lot of fun together. What is the most fun thing for you about what it is that you do?

PJ:
I love working with my kids. My kids are really awesome. They make me smile and they make me laugh. But when I’m grumpy, to go and sit in a baby goat pen, and just have baby goats jump all over you and pile all over you, or to just go into the kitchen and just sit there with your goat milk gelato, and just eat your caramel goat milk gelato, there’s a lot of places around the farm to not work and to just have fun, where we can just sit, and we’ll literally just take out a bunch of baby goats. We’ll all sit on the grass and just have the baby goats jump around us.

And so, when you’re tempted to get overwhelmed, you can just, you can take a step back. Because one thing I’ve learned over the years i it’s not going anywhere if I’m not answering customer emails for the next three hours. It’s about the relationships with the children. And doing all of that makes you better able to help customers, because as you said before, you enjoy it more.

Pat:
I want to take a goat break every once in a while. That’d be amazing.

PJ:
It’s impossible to be upset with the baby goats. They’re just, they bounce, they jump. They twist, they do all sorts of… We named one Parkour.

Pat:
I’ve seen them in a lot of yoga studios now.

PJ:
Yeah. We’ve done that.

Pat:
You’ve done that?

PJ:
The yoga and the goats. Yeah.

Pat:
Yeah. That’s so interesting.

PJ:
They do poop though. People get surprised when they poop. It’s like, “Yeah, they’re still baby goats, so got to get that in there.”

Pat:
That is true. That is true. You had mentioned the kids and the fact that they have retirement accounts and whatnot. I know that in some businesses, in many businesses, kids are hired for tax breaks, and there’s a lot of other tax implications and things like that. Who handles the tough financial things? Because a business, especially one at the size with so many moving parts and pieces, there’s a lot of numbers that have to get figured out and everything from legal to accounting, bookkeeping to planning, and who’s managing that?

PJ:
So, I’m doing it right now. I have been. It was a big change going from handling the family’s finances to business finances, completely different. I thought it would be so much easier than it was. I had no idea how much I didn’t know when I made that switch. And I’m training two of my children right now, one on the bookkeeping, one to deal with the accounting side of things – I mean, we have an accountant, but to be interfacing with the accountant.

And it’s amazing to see the different way the different children approach the finances in the business. So, at least once every quarter, usually once a quarter to once every six months, I print out all the finances. We sit down as a family and we go through all of them, and we make decisions on, “Are we making a big purchase? Are we building another building?” or whatnot, that kind of stuff. And it’s so awesome to see the different reactions, right? Because some are like, “Spend, spend, spend.” Others are like, “Don’t spend no matter what.” And it makes us better because we really have to justify what we do.

And so, when I’m talking to other business owners, especially solopreneurs who are just doing this it’s like, you need to have someone else balancing your financial decisions, because we all have a bias. We all have a tendency to go one way or the other. And so, if you can get someone on that opposite end to help you balance where you really have to justify the purchases you make and the expenses you choose to take on, your business is just going to be better for it.

Pat:
That makes sense. How or what, excuse me, drives the financial decisions in this business? What is the North Star that helps you go, yes or no, or spend more or spend less?

PJ:
So, I have a very long-term view. I don’t look at the very short term in the business. I look very long-term. And so, if it’s an investment that has a payback within three to five years, we make it with very little thought, right? Because it’s not that hard to figure out whether something’s going to pay you back or not.

Pat:
Do you have an example of something that has a three to five-year timeline payback?

PJ:
Yes. So, right now we are contemplating building a cheese cave. Okay? Because we make cheese.

Pat:
That sounds epic by the way.

PJ:
Yeah. And I want it. I want it so bad. I can see it. I can taste the cheese. Right? I want it so bad. But when I sit down and I do the numbers, it comes out to more like a 10 to 15 year payback for that cheese cave. So you say, okay, we’re not prepared to invest that much money for something with that long of a payback. So, then you say, “Okay, we can’t get the cheese cave yet. What is the next best option?” And so, it looks like we’re going to be investing probably in like a $5,000 vacuum sealer, which will help us to vacuum seal, prevent the natural moisture, so the cheese won’t be quite as good, but help us where instead of having to control for both temperature and moisture, just control for temperature. And so, that’s got probably an under a year payback.

Pat:
So, that’s the purpose of the cave is for moisture control and just to get out of the environment and whatnot?

PJ:
Yeah.

Pat:
Okay. So, if perhaps first option isn’t available or is a little bit too far down the line for an ROI, and it just doesn’t make business sense, just look for the next option, what would be the next best thing with probably your customers still in mind though, is the driving force of making sure quality is still… Because people make decisions sometimes not with quality in mind too.

PJ:
Yes. And the other thing is maybe that’s not the product you’re supposed to be in, right? Let’s say you’re going down and you’re thinking about this new product, and it’s got a 10 to 12 year period and you’re a small business, why are you investing in something like that? There’s got to be another product that has a lower payback. You just haven’t figured it out yet. And that’s where you have to take it outside of yourself.

I didn’t mention this before, but one of the best things we ever did was when I mentioned that we had put up a website and we were trying to drive people to it, was because we were doing these craft shows, we were interacting with people face to face. I could watch people pick up the different scents, smell them, be like, “Oh, I love this one.” And then buy another one. And I could say, “Oh, you like that one? Why did you choose this one?” And they would tell me, “Oh, I just think my husband would like it better.” Or whatever the reason was. And you get that immediate feedback.

So, if you’re looking at this thing, and it’s got this 10 to 12 years, talk to people and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about making this aged cheese, would you buy that at this price?” And they say, “Maybe.” And they say, “Well, what if I made a fresh cheese, and I just sold it to you tomorrow for this price, would you buy that?” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, that would be a much better” – a better price point or whatnot. Because your customers – what I always tell people is, you have to charge what you have to charge. Do not ever set your prices based on what you think people will pay. That’s like the fastest way out of business. You have to charge what you charge to stay in business, or you might as well not even bother trying.

Pat:
Right.

PJ:
So, you have to figure out if people are going to pay what you charge. And the best way to do that is to talk to them, is to say, “Here’s what it actually pays.”

So, another example of this is when we actually first started making the cheese and people were for years, “Oh, I want cheese. I want cheese. I love your soap, best soap ever. Can I have cheese?” We started making this and, “I’m not paying a ship that. I’m not free shipping. I can’t free shipping for cheese.” And so, we broke our own rule and we did it without giving them the prices. Now, we just sold it here on the farm. So, it wasn’t a big deal. But talking to people and giving them specific prices is the best way to figure out whether you actually have a viable business or not.

Pat:
That’s very true. These are notes of, Will It Fly? Like I wrote in my book, talk to people. It removes the guesswork. Why guess when you have your customer right there? I’m curious, if you were starting this business now, during the pandemic, without farmer’s markets, without the goat marketing in person, how do you think you would do it today online, but still have conversations and really get to know your customers?

PJ:
Yeah. The Facebook Live and YouTube Lives are the best for the immediate feedback. And they’re free. They just take your time. And it’s hard at first when you do your first Facebook Live and two people are there, and one of them is your spouse, and the other one is your mother. It’s hard. So, give yourself time to do that and try and market and say, “Hey, I’m going live at this time, if anybody wants to join me.” But that kind of feedback is just invaluable. And so that would be, if I didn’t have any money and I couldn’t pay for eyeballs, that’s what I would do.

Pat:
I absolutely love that. PJ, I can’t wait to chat with you a little bit more in our premium backstage. I just want to get to know you a little bit more. So, we’ll hit close in this recording real quick, and we’ll start up again for those who are joining us backstage.

But real quick, I just want to ask you, what’s the last piece of advice you have for everybody listening, who’s inspired by this conversation? I guarantee you they are. And they want to go build something, they want to create or take something that they’ve already started and just put more love into it, and maybe even bring their family into it too. Your philosophy for approaching business in a nutshell is what?

PJ:
Just try, right? Don’t go for these big grandiose things. Start with something little, because you have to figure out whether you like being in business. Do you like being an entrepreneur? Right? Because a lot of people think entrepreneurship is so great until they do it. Do you have the ability to handle the uncertainty that comes with entrepreneurship? So, pick something, even if that’s something like just reselling somebody else’s stuff, right? Go find something that you believe in and say, “Hey, can I go sell this on my YouTube channel?” And figure out whether it’s something that you can be passionate about and something that you’re willing to do, whether when times get tough, because they will get tough at times.

Pat:
Thank you so much for this, PJ. Where can people go to find your stuff?

PJ:
The easiest way to get everything is to just go to GoatMilkStuff.com. If you want to find us on, like I said, we’re on Facebook at @GoatMilkStuff, and Instagram @GoatMilkStuff. But you can just, the phone number and email and contact form is all on the website. So, that’s the best way to get ahold of me.

Pat:
Amazing. Thank you so much, PJ. We appreciate you.

PJ:
Absolutely. Thanks.

Pat:
Wasn’t that incredible? Probably one of the most inspirational interviews I’ve done. And honestly, and I just got to be fully up front with you, after the interview, PJ and her family sent me a kind care package with some soap and some bars and some other things. And there was a note in there, and the note says, and here’s the paper, I’m reading it right now. It smells really good by the way. It says Goat Milk Stuff at the top. And handwritten, it says, “Hey, Pat, looking forward to hearing mom on your podcast. I hope you enjoy all the stuff. God bless, Colter.” So, he’s the 22 year old, second eldest of the kids. They’ve got them writing notes. And it feels very personable, very special. And now my wife and I, we use our goat milk soap every day. And this is non-sponsored, but I do want to let you know they sent me some stuff after, and I am a fan. You know I’m always authentic about that.

But PJ and Jim, and the entire Jonas family, you are amazing. Thank you for what you do. I hope maybe, I don’t know, I’m just imagining y’all having dinner and listening to this or something. Maybe I predicted that and you’re laughing out loud now. Or maybe you’re listening to this by yourself, and you’re like, “Pat, you have no idea what we do or how we do what we do.” But I do have an idea of how the family business is run. I’m super, super stoked, very encouraged. Thank you so, so much all of you.

And for those of you listening, I hope you enjoyed this too. Again, GoatMilkStuff.com, check it out. They have a beautiful About page, about the family. You can check them out. And it’s just incredible. So, thank you for the inspiration, personally, and thank you on behalf of the audience as well.

So audience, if you’re listening, thank you so much. Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven’t already. We got more stories like this coming your way. Thank you, I appreciate you, and I look forward to serving you in the next episode of the Smart Passive Income Podcast.

Thanks so much. Cheers. Peace out. Team Flynn for the win.

Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound design and editing by Paul Grigoras. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess, our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.